AD&D 1E Three Things that can't be Fixed in 1e AD&D

[Moving Pictures]

And that's exactly what we see in published works going all the way back to 1e - a setting absolutely awash in magic items. How many are to be found in the Caves of Chaos, or the nearby Keep? How many are to be found in the Village of Homlet or the Temple of Elemental Evil. In practice, the setting is awash in magic items.

I find that most older modules were awash with Monty Haul levels of magic. IIRC, the famed Keep on the Borderlands has some entry-level priest in +1 plate.

 

[Celebrim]

I find that most older modules were awash with Monty Haul levels of magic. IIRC, the famed Keep on the Borderlands has some entry-level priest in +1 plate.

Even back in the day, one of the things I found myself doing with respect to published modules was removing what I felt were "excess" magic items. I think the one that really jumps out in my head is that in I believe I3 Pyramid there is a room that just has 3 maces +3 laying unguarded on the floor.

 

[Lanefan]

Craft Minor Potion
Start level: 3
Components: VSM
CT: 10 minutes
Type: Regular
Range: 0
Area of effect: Special
Save: n/a
Pray:
Upcasting: n
Powercasting: n
Scaling:
Cap:

This magic transforms Herbs – those with abnormal properties – into potions. Potions magically preserve the effect of the herb.
Material components include the herb to be preserved, a vial, suitable stopper, and a liquid of some form – usually distilled alcohol. The alcohol is denatured as part of the process. The herb must be relatively fresh, no older than one-third its expected lifespan. Herbs of class 1 and 2 can be transformed into potions in this manner. Certain herbs that mirror clerical spells can be enhanced by also adding a clerical spell to the crafting. An example of this would be the potion created by a Darsurian – the end result if a Cure Wounds spell is added is a potion that heals 2BP or 2d4 fatigues.

You might want to either add some sort of material cost to this or harshly limit how often it can be cast, otherwise your Rangers and Nature Clerics stand to make a financial killing by producing these potions and selling them on the open market.

 

[Lanefan]

Even back in the day, one of the things I found myself doing with respect to published modules was removing what I felt were "excess" magic items. I think the one that really jumps out in my head is that in I believe I3 Pyramid there is a room that just has 3 maces +3 laying unguarded on the floor.

I used to think like that, but eventually came around to "hell with it - leave it as it lies".

Why?

Because IME they either destroy the good stuff along with the bad or just sell it off because they don't want it. Having run it a few times now I don't recall there being 3 unguarded +3 maces in Pyramid (for all I know I've just forgotten them), but given how uncommonly people take mace as a weapon proficiency the odds are high those would have just been sold off anyway, by whatever party found 'em.

 

[cbwjm]

During covid I ran some friends through some old DnD Thunder Rift modules using 5e, creating a mini-campaign. By the time they were 3rd or 4th level they had plenty of magical items lying around, including a couple of spare +1 swords and a magical circlet that protected the wearer with a permanent protection of evil effect. I really liked all of the items they could wind up with, makes the game more fun for us.

I do recall they managed to miss a lot of (maybe all) items in the first adventure, but the second made up for it.

 

[Lanefan]

During covid I ran some friends through some old DnD Thunder Rift modules using 5e, creating a mini-campaign. By the time they were 3rd or 4th level they had plenty of magical items lying around, including a couple of spare +1 swords and a magical circlet that protected the wearer with a permanent protection of evil effect. I really liked all of the items they could wind up with, makes the game more fun for us.

I do recall they managed to miss a lot of (maybe all) items in the first adventure, but the second made up for it.

A movie I've seen many a time before.

Just because you-as-DM place an item in an adventure doesn't mean they're gonna find it, or that they'll recognize it as valuable even if they do find it.

 

[Celebrim]

Just because you-as-DM place an item in an adventure doesn't mean they're gonna find it, or that they'll recognize it as valuable even if they do find it.

It's amazing how often the PCs manage to not find the stuff you thought would be easy to find, and then randomly detect magic in an area that you didn't expect them to and find something you thought really hard to find. So, they'll like miss the bag of holding and the three potions of cure serious wounds, but they will find the really hard to find ring of elemental command.

And then of course they'll die before they realize how to use the ring, because they didn't find the potions and did something stupid.

 

[Voadam]

For the big OP point of AD&D's reverse bell curve big impact ability score system I was quite unhappy with it by the end of 2e.

The disparity between a 17 strength fighter and an 18 percentile one is significant. Gatekeeping of classes behind stat requirements was annoying. The rich get richer phenomena was significant and broad, in bonuses, class qualifications, max level, max spell levels, roll under proficiencies, and bonus xp. Stats mattered.

I liked the human rolls chart in UA that allowed PCs to have great scores to make heroic action star characters and at least hit guaranteed minimums for the classes they wanted to play. I was conceptually glad when I saw Dragon came out with a similar system for demihumans even though I did not own that issue.

2e Players Option Skills and Powers added similar dice assigning methods and point buy options to craft how you wanted your character to be and had a neat option of splitting scores into subabilities that could diverge but had to be within 4 points of each other, so if you rolled a 16 strength, you could have an 18 percentile for combat but a 14 strength for bending bars and such. I thought this was great but it had contradictory statements on whether these were capped at 18s. I felt if they were uncapped it just made the rich get richer problem worse as going from a 12 strength to 14 gives no benefit, but going from 17 to 19 is huge.

Even with these options I was getting a bit dissatisfied with AD&D stats. I wanted characters generated randomly to be different and fun, not just hugely disparate in their effectiveness which I did not find as fun. NWPs using roll under stats also pointed out how much of a difference an 18 versus a 10 meant in an ability check (base 90% success versus fifty fifty) which really skewed things when different people tried the same general adventuring thing.

By the end of 2e I was starting to think that B/X Basic looked like a better option with the 13-15, 16-17, 18 +1, +2, +3 modifiers not being so huge a disparity if there was a difference, so 3d6 randomly rolled in order could be viable and not mechanically terrible in comparison to good rolls. Also how there was no gate keeping on classes and levels from stats.

Importing that to AD&D would mean top fighters would generally be a bit less powerful (no +4-6 damage from big percentile strength). It would also require deciding on whether to have minimums for classes like rangers or paladins or just let them be superior options for good characters.

 

[Celebrim]

Importing that to AD&D would mean top fighters would generally be a bit less powerful (no +4-6 damage from big percentile strength). It would also require deciding on whether to have minimums for classes like rangers or paladins or just let them be superior options for good characters.

You can see how I'm dealing with these problems in my little project here, where I'm reducing the requirements to get into the inherently powerful classes, and I'm giving every class a little Cavalier like ability to train up its Prime Requisite so that if you "only" had a 16 or 17 in your PR to start, you could still in the medium to long term catch up with that 18/60 strength fighter or 18 intelligence M/U instead of effectively being stuck with bad stats forever (baring a lucky Tome discovery).

If you rolled the 18/00 to start, lucky you, but if you didn't you'd still eventually get there if you at least had a decent PR to start with.

 

[Moving Pictures]

You might want to either add some sort of material cost to this or harshly limit how often it can be cast, otherwise your Rangers and Nature Clerics stand to make a financial killing by producing these potions and selling them on the open market.

In the current mechanic, nature clerics generally cannot find herbs, and in any event, only regular clerics can craft potions.

I gotta figure out if I want a mechanic for non-clerics to do things, but at the moment I'm content with the existing approach.